Life In The Loop
by Paradoxical Ruby
Summary: On a trip to the United States, the 11th Doctor and Clara encounter a boy haunted by a strange curse. Can they help set his life back on the right path? No pairings, just a short, fun adventure!
1. Chapter 1

"Come on, Dean," Ella insisted, tugging on his arm, "We only have an hour left to go!"

"No." Dean pulled away from her. Ella gave him a dejected look, which pricked his heart with guilt. "It's been a hard week. I should go."

Ella stuck her tongue out at him, clearly unaware that it made her look like a six year-old. "Dean Harper, you are the biggest killjoy on the planet."

"Eleanor Chavez, you are the biggest pain in the neck on the planet," Dean teased, and she slapped his arm. Dean could hear people whispering not-so-subtly behind them: "Look at those two!" "'Just friends.' Yeah, right." But he didn't let it nag him. It wasn't like he'd be around to hear it for much longer.

Dean clambered into his car, calling over his shoulder, "I'm sorry, Ella. I really am."

"Then why are you going?!" Ella cried over the rev of the engine.

Dean hung his head so she couldn't see the tears forming in the corners of his eyes. "I wish I could tell you, Ella. But you wouldn't believe me."

Ella chased after the car as it disappeared down the lane. "December thirty-first, 1999, nearly midnight. Possibly the biggest moment of our lives, and you want to sleep through it!"

Dean watched Ella grow smaller and smaller in his rearview mirror until she was only a blur. Believe me, he thought as he turned round the corner, It isn't as big of a deal as everyone thinks.

Dean's apartment complex, a dusty little three-story building on the outskirts of town, was so ancient it seemed like it would crumble to pieces if you sneezed within a five-mile radius of it. It got extremely depressing at times, but it certainly beat the alternative. Dean had lived in an orphanage several times before. Suffice to say that it wasn't his cup of tea.

"Oh hello, Dean." Dean was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he nearly ran into his neighbor as he plodded up the first flight of stairs. "Back so soon? I thought you were out at a party."

Dean shrugged. "My folks wanted me to come home. You know how it is."

The woman nodded. "And how have they been doing lately? Any better?"

Dean shook his head and affected a sullen tone. "Not much, I'm afraid. The doctor says it'll be at least another week until they can even get out of bed."

She sighed, as if deeply touched by Dean's undying devotion to his ever-so-ill "parents." "Well, they certainly are lucky to have such an incredible son. You take care now!" She tottered down the steps and out the door.

Dean couldn't help smirking to himself as he continued on his way. Sometimes people could be so gullible. Fortunately, that was how he had managed to scrape by all these years, feeding all the landlords some sob story about how his folks were too sick to work their jobs or even leave their rooms. Throw in an "I just want them to get better" and a pair of sad puppy eyes and everyone just rolled right over.

"Honey, I'm home!" Dean announced to his empty apartment, then chuckled to himself. Sometimes the only way to ease the pain of being so alone was to poke fun at it. He hopped about as he removed his boots and jacket, not bothering to put them away. He dropped his room key on the mat outside before shutting the door. Hopefully someone would find it. Dean didn't know exactly how things worked after he was gone, but he assumed that life continued on in a typical linear fashion for everyone else.

Dean collapsed in his bed, his eyelids heavy. At least his fib to Ella had been partially true; he had had a hard week. He'd been attempting, as he did right before all of his frequent moves, to make the most of the time he had left with whomever he'd allowed himself to get attached to. Normally, he tried to choose a different town each time, to keep himself under the radar. But for some reason, he'd grown particularly fond of Stone Feather, Arizona, this widely unheard-of little hamlet in the nineties, and he couldn't help returning to it each time around, and, if he was honest with himself, couldn't help returning to her. . .

A heavy cloak of misery draped itself across the tiny room. Dean dreaded returning to that wretched old children's home in New Jersey. 1900 seemed like the Stone Age if you'd lived through the rest of the twentieth century. If only he could figure out how to end the loop, how to change this lonely, twisted fate he'd been doomed to fulfill for the rest of his life, no matter how long that may be.

Dean drifted into a sweet dark haze, his subconscious mind preparing itself, waiting for the angel to appear. . .

A strange grinding noise roused Dean quickly. A shape, bluish and boxy, materialized in the doorway. Dean sat up straight, his chest pounding with alarm.

The door opened, and out stepped a tall young man in a dark coat and a bow tie, mostly obscured from view by the darkness. He aimed a small device at the light fixtures, and the tip glowed green and made a buzzing noise. The lights turned on instantly.

"Here we are! 1964!" The man declared in a British accent, doing an odd sort of dance on his heels. "Just in time to see the Beatles tour America! Am I brilliant or what?"

The door swung open again, and a pretty, dark-haired girl not too much older than Dean stepped out, grinning. "Finally, we're here!" She glanced around. "Wait, why are we in an apartment? Who's that? That's not Paul, is it? He looks younger in real life."

Dean couldn't help but laugh a little. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I think you're in the wrong decade. Who are you, and how did you get in my apartment?"

The man gave Dean a lopsided smile. "I'm the Doctor, and this is Clara. And you're. . ." The man pointed his device at Dean and swiped it up and down through the air once over. His expression grew grim. ". . .you're a walking time paradox! What did you say your name was?"

"Dean. Dean Harper." Dean anxiously reached for his watch on the bedside table. "What time is it right now. . . Doctor, did you say?"

The Doctor let out a little huff. "'What time is it?' What kind of moronic question is that?" He straightened his bow tie importantly. "When you've got a time machine, it can be any time you want."

"Not in my case. At midnight, I go right back to the 1900s," Dean explained, figuring a fancy British guy who had a vanishing box and called himself "The Doctor" would probably believe anything.

The Doctor looked Dean straight in the eye. In that brief moment, it was as if a window to his soul had been opened. He seemed much older and wiser than his appearance let on, as if he had lived out a thousand lifetimes. "Not if I have anything to say about it. Dean Harper, something is terribly messing up your timeline, and whatever it is, it is in big trouble, because now it has me to deal with. If you'll just come into the TARDIS with us, we can—"

"Wait." Dean motioned to the box. "You mean that little thing? Two of you seems like a tight squeeze already. I think three would be a bit of a crowd."

Clara raised an eyebrow. "That's what everyone says. Trust me, it's bigger on the inside."

The Doctor looked hurt. "That's what I always say! You don't get to say it, you're just the plucky companion!"

"'Plucky?!'" Clara repeated, her hands on her hips.

Dean ignored him and fumbled with his watch. It now read 11:59. "After living through the twentieth century so many times I lost count, I'll believe anything. Let's just get out of here, now. It's almost midnight."

"Why?" Clara asked, "What happens at midnight, exactly?"

"I don't know," Dean admitted, "I never had the guts to stay awake and find out. All I know is that I always wake up in an orphanage in New Jersey on January first, 1900."

The Doctor looked pensive. "I have a hunch what might be behind this, but if I'm right—and I usually am—then we don't want to be around to meet it." He threw open the box's door and waved. "Right. Off we go, then!"


	2. Chapter 2

For what seemed to be ages, Dean could only stand in the center of the TARDIS and stare, pivoting in slow circles. Clara watched him with an amused sort of smile on her face.

"When you said bigger in the inside, I didn't imagine this," Dean breathed.

Clara said knowingly, "You haven't seen the half of it!"

"Leave the boy alone, Clara," The Doctor insisted before changing the subject. "So Dean, this orphanage of yours—what was it called?"

"Saint John's Good Children's Home. Didn't quite live up to the name," Dean scoffed.

"Then that's where we're headed!" The Doctor declared. He toyed with the control panel, flipping switches and turning dials as enthusiastically as a little boy playing with a new train set. Dean hoped he knew what he was doing.

The TARDIS careened back and forth, then skidded to a less-than-graceful halt. Dean flung open the door, and to his surprise, he stepped outside to find the squat stone building he hated with a passion standing before him, its dreary gray walls shiny from the rain, just as they always were.

Clara followed Dean out, examining him carefully. "I take it we found the right place?"

Dean crossed his arms. "You didn't have to bring me back here."

The Doctor slapped Dean on the back. "'Course we did. This is the best place to start looking for answers. If you turn up here every time you get sent back in time, then there has to be a reason."

A harsh voice, sharp and high and all-too-familiar, made Dean jump. "Harper! What are you doing out here? And who are these people you're with? They aren't more of your delinquent friends, are they?"

A wiry old woman with blond hair in a bun so tight it pulled her skin back came marching up the walkway. She seized Dean's arm and dug in her nails, making him wince. She gave The Doctor a contemptuous glare.

"Are you planning another escape?" She demanded, rounding on Dean, her beady black eyes boring into him.

"No, Ms. Hollingsworth," Dean grumbled.

"I can explain," The Doctor cut in swiftly, "You see, my assistant and I are from the Board of Inspecting Inspectors from the Board of America, and we're here to inspect the premises, since we're inspectors and all." He held up a small square of paper laminated inside a black case, a hint of mischief in his eyes. Ms. Hollingsworth immediately loosened her grip on Dean.

"Of course," she said warmly, "come on in." She strode up the walkway, half-dragging Dean along with her.

"As you can see, Inspectors," she proclaimed, throwing open the door. "Here at St. John's, we keep our facility nice and proper, to make the children feel at home."

The Doctor pretended to listen as he opened a china bowl full of sugar on the kitchen table and sprinkled a handful onto his tongue. He then swallowed and proceeded to ask, "So Ms. Hollingsworth, do you run this facility all on your own?"

Ms. Hollingsworth's voice turned colder as she replied, "I'm afraid I will soon enough. My husband used to help me, but sadly, he doesn't have much time left."

"May we talk to him?" The Doctor looked sympathetic. Ms. Hollingsworth looked like she was going to snap at him, but before she could respond, The Doctor grabbed both Dean and Clara and pulled them away.

"Where are we headed?" Dean stumbled over his own feet trying to keep up with The Doctor.

"To find Mr. Hollingsworth!" The Doctor cried. "Have you been paying attention? The Missus got defensive when I asked to speak to him, so that must mean they're hiding something. Dean, you've never met Mr. Hollingsworth, have you?"

"No. I didn't even know Ms. Hollingsworth was a Missus," Dean admitted.

"Exactly, something's wrong. You've lived here long enough, you should have met him by now. So where is he?"

Ms. Hollingsworth pursued them down the hallway, shouting, "You can't speak with him! He's incredibly sick, and he doesn't like visitors!"

The Doctor ignored her as he strode up a small flight of stairs to the third floor. He put his ear up to each door and listened intently.

"Aha!" He declared, throwing open the last door on the right. "Here he is!"

The Doctor, Dean, and Clara stepped inside. Dean frowned. There wasn't much to see: a wobbly little dresser, a bed placed under a tiny window, a picture frame dangling precariously from a nail in the wall.

"I don't get it," Dean protested, "What are we doing-"

"Dean?" An old man lying in the bed shot up straight as a rail. Dean jumped. The man was so frail and scrawny that Dean hadn't noticed him there before.

"Ah! Mr. Hollingsworth, I presume." The Doctor took one of the old man's hands and shook it briefly.

The man ignored the Doctor completely and focused his gaze on Dean. "Dean, you're alive! It worked!"

"What do you mean? What worked?" Dean demanded.

"Dean," Clara piped up, "You may want to see this." She pointed to the photo on the wall. It was in black and white, and though it was blurred and faded, Dean could make out five figures outlined against a coastline. The two people on the left, though they looked a few years younger, were clearly Mr. and Mrs. Hollingsworth. The little boy in the middle looked strikingly familiar, though it had been many years since Dean had last seen his face. And the couple on the right, though they seemed completely foreign, could only be two people.

"My parents," Dean breathed. "The couple in the photo are my parents. And that's me. How old was I? Seven? Eight? Why can't I remember?!"

"Dean," Mr. Hollingsworth choked out, " Your parents died last year. Don't you remember? There was a terrible disease that riddled the town, but your family had it worst. You were going to die. Your parents refused to let that happen. You were only sixteen, they insisted, you had your whole life ahead of you. I was the leading physician in town for many years, and your family had been friends of mine. I was more than willing to cure you."

"So it worked, then?"

"Too well. It stopped your aging process. As far as I know, you, Dean Harper, are the world's first immortal."

"But then why can't I live past 1999?" Dean pressed. "Why do I keep getting sent back here?"

Mr. Hollingsworth looked baffled. "I don't know what you mean. It's only 1900."

Dean turned desperately to The Doctor, who shrugged. "That's a whole different mystery entirely, I guess."

Clara tapped her chin pensively. "So why does your wife despise Dean so much?"

Mr. Hollingsworth shook his head. "I only had enough of the cure to save Dean, which meant that I couldn't save my wife's brother. Ever since, she's chosen to take it out on the boy, not me. By then, I was too sick myself for her to get upset with me." He dissolved into a coughing fit and laid back down. "This illness will be the last of me soon. But if one of us could have survived, I'm glad it was you, Dean." With that, he drifted soundly off to sleep.

For a moment, the room was utterly silent. Dean took one last longing look at the photo of his parents. "So they're gone. After all these years of trying to find them, of trying to remember what they were like. . . they're gone."

Clara put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Dean."

Out of nowhere, The Doctor started bouncing up and down, clapping his hands. "Oh, this is wonderful!"

"Doctor!" Clara scolded.

"Oh, yes, I'm so sorry for your loss, Dean, but this is brilliant!" The Doctor threw his hands up in the air. "What town was it that we found you in, Dean?"

"Stone Feather, Arizona," Dean replied.

"And when did you move there?"

"August 1998."

"Oh, that is clever. That is clever!" The Doctor turned and bolted out the door and down the stairs. Dean and Clara raced to keep up. The Doctor dashed outside, hopped into the TARDIS, and waved to the two of them vigorously. "Come on! We only have ninety-eight years to spare!"


	3. Chapter 3

"Explain this to me again," Dean whispered to The Doctor from his crouching position behind the apartment building. "Why are we hiding from nothing?"

"Shh!" The Doctor hushed. "We don't want it to hear us!"

"But—" Dean started to argue, but The Doctor clamped a hand over his mouth and pointed across the street, to a statue positioned in a garden. The statue looked lonely and desolate, with its face in its hands and a pair of wings drooping at its sides.

"See?" The Doctor said knowingly.

Dean shook his head. "No."

"It's a Weeping Angel!" The Doctor clarified, sounding exasperated. Dean must have still looked perplexed, because The Doctor continued, "They're creatures who're made of stone, but only when you look at them. As soon as you blink or turn away, they come to life and they move. And they move fast. You don't want them to touch you, so keep looking at them."

"What happens if they touch you?" Dean asked.

The Doctor looked Dean square in the eye. "They send you back in time."

A wave of understanding dawned on Dean. "So you think that the thing that's been screwing up my timeline for centuries has been just across the street?"

"Looks that way, doesn't it? But what gets me is why it only attacks you, and at the one specific point in time." The Doctor stood, brushed off his coat, and grinned eccentrically. "Let's go ask it!"

Clara grabbed The Doctor before he could go. "Are you mad?!"

"Yes, of course." The Doctor arched his brow. "We've been over this before."

"What are you doing?! You can't talk to it! It doesn't even talk!"

"I can hear it," The Doctor assured her, "I speak every language. And besides, I have a feeling it'll talk to Dean."

Dean held up his hands. "I'm not going anywhere near that thing!"

"It can't kill you," The Doctor pointed out.

Dean eyed the statue warily, mulling it over. Finally, he decided The Doctor was right and trotted behind him across the street.

From up close, the statue seemed more sinister than lonely, like at any moment it would come to life and spring up out of its pose on the pedestal. Spellbound, Dean felt the overwhelming urge to reach up and stroke its wings, to hold its motionless hands in his...

The Doctor snatched Dean's hand before he could touch it. "Stop. It's the angel that's making you do that."

"And why would it do that?"

"Because it loves you, Dean, and because it needs you. There's a reason the Weeping Angels are called the Lonely Assassins. They're only stone when you look at them, which means most of the time they're locked in their own lifeless world. They can't even look at each other. This one, though..." The Doctor turned his gaze to the angel and back to Dean again. "This one's grown rather attached to you, Dean."

"So on December thirty-first, 1999, this thing comes alive and sends me back to the beginning of the century. But why? I mean, why then?"

"The Weeping Angels survive by feeding off of temporal energy. They send you back in time, then take the amount of years you had left to live. Think about it, Dean. You can't die, so sending you back in time would give it an infinite amount of energy. So it chooses to send you back at exactly the same point every time you go through the loop."

"So the question is," Clara deduced, "Why do you keep coming back here every time you go through the loop?"

Dean sighed. "It's complicated."

"Oh, I'm sure it is," The Doctor chuckled to himself. "There's a girl involved, isn't there, Dean? There's always a girl involved."

"Yeah, kind of," Dean admitted.

"That's so sweet!" Clara squealed, "But also terrible, 'cause of, you know, the whole evil alien statue bit, and—"

"Clara!" The Doctor snapped suddenly, "Aren't you supposed to be watching the angel?"

"No, you never said to," Clara pointed out sourly.

The Doctor flinched. "Well, I meant to, and now we're all in big trouble. Look for it, quickly!"

They all whipped back around, but to Dean's astonishment, the angel had gone, vanished as quickly as if it had been an apparition all along. Fear surged up in Dean's chest, and he bit his lip nervously.

"Doctor?" Clara asked a bit too shrilly, "Where did it go?"

The Doctor grimaced, revealing that even he was no longer all too sure of himself. "I don't know, but it's not anywhere nearby, because I can't hear it. It may have sensed us and gone for reinforcements, or..."

"Hi!" A voice chirped. Dean whirled around to find Ella, of all people, standing behind him, her hands folded behind her back and a jubilant smile on her face.

"I haven't seen any of you around here before," Ella commented, oblivious to the sea of turmoil she'd just stepped into. "If you don't mind me asking, can you help me move the phone box that just appeared down the road?"

Dean was dumbfounded. Wave after wave of emotion competed for control over his brain: confusion, panic, and an odd sense of relief, as if he'd finally found his oasis amidst all the madness.

The Doctor, however, did not seem as joyful. He turned to Ella and said, uncharacteristically stern, "You need to leave. It isn't safe here."

Ella laughed, somewhat nervously. She looked at Dean quizzically. "Is this your dad or something? He's kind of bizarre."

"Look." Dean instinctively reached out to put his hands on Ella's shoulders, then remembered that they hadn't met yet and awkwardly pulled back. "He's telling you the truth. Promise me you'll—"

"There it is!" Clara shrieked. She pointed over to the opposite side of the street.

"What?" Ella began to follow Clara's finger, but it was too late. The angel materialized right behind her.

Time slowed drastically. Everything seemed to happen all at once. Dean threw himself over Ella just as The Doctor reached for Dean, and Clara for The Doctor. The world dissolved into a white light so blinding Dean had to shut his eyes tight.

When Dean dared to open his eyes again, it took a moment for what he was seeing to fully sink in. The world was an endless black chasm stretching in all directions, dotted with pinpricks of light and splashes of color that faded if you looked right at them. Though there was nothing under his feet, Dean wasn't drifting. Instead, everything seemed to be rotating around him.

Ella squirmed, and it was just then that Dean realized his arms were still draped around her shoulders. Embarrassed, he let go, and she drank in the sight with boundless wonder.

"Where are we?" Her voice quivered, barely above a whisper. Dean wished he could soothe her, but unfortunately, he was quite unclear about their surroundings as well.

"Ah! I can answer that!" The Doctor piped up, making Dean jump. He hadn't realized that he was still behind him. "You see, we're in between the threads of time, a limbo, if you will. Nothing is really solid or tangible here. Being a time-lord and an intelligent one at that, I have just enough energy to keep us from disintegrating."

"That still doesn't really explain it." Ella's eyes were as wide as tennis balls. "Who are you people? And if we're really inside a..."

"A limbo," The Doctor supplied.

"...Then how did we end up here?"

"Well," The Doctor tapped his chin. "I'm an alien time-traveler and this is my plucky companion, but the one you really need to know is Dean. You did know him, and you have known him for years now, but that just hasn't happened yet."

Ella frowned. "I still don't understand."

Dean stepped in. "If things had gone normally, I would have arrived in your town in another few months. We would have been friends. Now I'm not so sure."

"So we ended up here... How?"

"When the angel touched Dean at the same time it grabbed you," The Doctor explained, "It created a paradox. The angel wasn't supposed to have sent him back in time until December, so it cancelled out the entire timeline where Dean met you. In addition, Dean wasn't even supposed to have met you until August, so touching you created another paradox. At this point his timeline is so incredibly tangled and twisted that time has just decided to dump him here until..."

"Until what?" Dean demanded.

"Until it decides what to do." The Doctor folded his arms. "And I may be a time-lord, and I may influence time, but I can't control it. I've tried before, and it didn't turn out pretty." The Doctor patted Dean's shoulder, his brown eyes full of sorrow. "I'm sorry, Dean, but this matter is beyond my control. Whatever happens, happens."

"Does that mean..." Dean cast a glance at Ella, who returned it with worry and puzzlement. Dean's heart swelled, and he swallowed hard. He wanted to argue, but he knew as well as The Doctor that it was pointless. Fate could not be altered, no matter what.

"Hey." Ella took his hand. The gesture was sweet and genuine, despite how little she knew about him. "I'm sorry, really. I wish I could have known you."

Dean could do no more than stare out into the void.

"If it means anything to you," Ella said, tracing his palm with her index finger, "I think you deserve a second chance, to live your life the way it should have been."

"But I was happy with my life," Dean murmured, making the revelation much too late. "I was happy with you."

Ella put her lips to his cheek. They were soft and cool, and they sent an invigorating sensation fluttering through every nerve in his body at once. Then she lifted her head and whispered into his ear, "You can find me again."

The Doctor began to speak, but just then the light returned. Dean knew what was coming. He felt peaceful and relaxed, as if a large burden had been lifted off of his shoulders. He closed his eyes and waited for time to fold itself around him.


	4. Chapter 4

The TARDIS ground to a halt on the dusty desert road. The Doctor peeked his head outside, checking for any spectators who may be around to gawk at them, then waved at Clara to follow him.

"Are you sure you got it right this time?" Clara asked dubiously.

"Positive," The Doctor proclaimed, "I mean, yes, there are hundreds of towns spread out across America and yes, they do change fairly rapidly through the the years, but no American is going to fool The Doctor, eh?"

Clara giggled, then turned serious again. "And you're sure the angel's gone now?"

The Doctor nodded. "Because it created the paradox, time chose to erase it. It never existed."

Clara beamed. "Works for me. Come on!" The two of them raced down the road towards the house that sat waiting for them, framed by the rays of the setting sun.

Clara was the first to reach the window. She peered through the glass into the tiny living room, careful to remain hidden from view. A woman in her late twenties was seated on the couch, surrounded by friends and relatives gushing over the baby in her arms.

The Doctor smiled broadly and spoke as if the people inside could hear him. "Congratulations, old boy. You made it. The 2000s."

"That's her, isn't it, Doctor?"

"It is, Clara. It hasn't been that long, really, only ten years or so," he mused.

"But she wouldn't remember?"

The Doctor's smile wavered. "No, I'm afraid not."

They both lapsed into a thoughtful silence. Then Clara inquired, "Is she happy, Doctor?"

"Sure looks that way," The Doctor assured her, "She's a mother now. She doesn't have any reason to be unhappy."

"Excuse me." A woman opened the door and studied Clara and The Doctor with thinly veiled suspicion. "Who are you?"

"Oh, just old friends of the happy couple," The Doctor answered. "We were in the neighborhood, so we thought we'd pop by."

"Oh." The woman blinked, perplexed, then her expression cleared and she held open the door. "Well, why don't you come in? It's cold tonight, and it doesn't seem polite to make you stay outside."

"Right." The Doctor winked as he and Clara were ushered indoors. "Because it always gets cold at night in Stone Feather, Arizona."

The woman with the baby in her arms stood and greeted The Doctor and Clara with a warm smile. "Hello. It's been a while."

"You said she wouldn't recognize us," Clara whispered to The Doctor.

"Not consciously, she doesn't. She probably just thinks we're old schoolmates." The Doctor took the baby and swung him around, making him quake with laughter. "Look at you, precious little thing! I can tell you're going to be an extraordinary one, you are!"

"He seems to know it, too," the mother chimed in.

"What's his name?" Clara asked.

Ella's eyes grew distant, as if reaching out into space to see her boy's name penciled in the stars. "It's Dean."

"That's a beautiful name," Clara told her, sharing a secret glance with The Doctor.

Ella heaved a sigh, one that contained a heavy weight from a life gone by. "Yes, Clara, I think so, too."


End file.
